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NITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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The Hermitage 



AND 



OTHER POEMS 



BY 



Edward Rowland Sill. 




(867 






NEW YORK: 

LEYPOLDT & HOLT. 
1868. 



.■V\f. : '* 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1867, 

By E. R. SILL, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New York. 



ANDERSON & RAMSAY, Printers, 
28 Frankfort Street, N. Y. 



CONTENTS. 





PAGE 


The Hermitage .... 


• 7 


Sundown .'■-.. 


• 48 


The Arch .... 


. 50 


April in Oakland .... 


52 


Eastern Winter 


• 55 


Sleeping . . . . . . 


57 


Starlight ..... 


• 59 


A Dead Bird in Winter 


62 


Spring Twilight . 


. 64 


Evening ...... 


66 


The Organ .... 


. 68 


A Memory . . 


70 


Lost Love ..... 


• 72 


Influences 


74 


A Daily Miracle 


• 75 


Life ...... 


77 


The Choice .... 


. . 78 


Morning ...... 


79 


A Prayer . . « 


. 81 


The Polar Sea .... 


• 83 



CONTENTS. 



Faith . 

Fertility 

Music . 

Three Songs 

Despair and Hope 

Wisdom and Fame 

Serenity 

The Ruby Heart 

To Child Anna . 

The World's Secret 

The Fountain 

Discontent 

Solitude 

A Paradox 

The Future 

Retrospect 

Home . 

The Dead President 

Seeming and Being 

Summer Afternoon . 

Weather-bound . 

To Child Sara 

A Fable 

The Creation . 

The First Cause 

Semele 

A Poet's Apology 



86 
88 
90 

93 

95 

98 

100 
102 
107 
109 
in 

"3 

"5 
116 
117 
119 
121 

125 

128 

131 
i34 
136 

139 
144 

i45 
148 

152 



POEMS. 



I. 

THE HERMITAGE.* 

A LIFE, — a common, cleanly, quiet life, 
Full of good citizenship and repute, 
New, but with promise of prosperity, — 
A well-bred, fair, young-gentlemanly life, — 
What business had a girl to bring her eyes, 
And her blonde hair, and her clear, ringing voice, 
And break up life, as a bell breaks a dream ? 
Had Love Christ's wrath, and did this life sell doves 
In the world's temple, that Love scourged it forth 
Beyond the gates ? Within, the worshippers, — 
Without, the waste, and the hill-country, where 
The life, with smarting shoulders and stung heart, 
Unknowing that the hand which scourged could heal, 
Drave forth, blind, cursing, in despair to die, 
Or work its own salvation out in fear. 



Old World — old, foolish, wicked World — farewell ! 



* California, Bay of San Francisco, 1866. 



THE HERMITAGE. 

Since the Time-angel left my soul with thee, 
Thou hast been a hard step-mother unto me. 
Now I at last rebel 
Against thy stony eyes and cruel hands. 

1 will go seek in far-off lands 

Some quiet corner, where my years shall be 

Still as the shadow of a brooding bird 

That stirs but with her heart-beats. Far, unheard 

May wrangle on the noisy human host, 

While I will face my Life, that silent ghost, 

And force it speak what it would have with me. 

Not of the fair young Earth, 
The snow-crowned, sunny-belted globe ; 
Not of its skies, nor Twilight's purple robe, 
Nor pearly dawn ; not of the flowers' birth, 
And Autumn's forest-funerals ; not of storms, 
And quiet seas, and clouds' incessant forms ; 
Not of the sanctuary of the night, 
With its solemnities, nor any sight 
And pleasant sound of all the friendly day : 
But I am tired of what we call our lives ; 
Tired of the endless humming in the hives, — 
Sick of the bitter honey that we eat, 
And sick of cursing all the shallow cheat. 



THE HERMITAGE. 

Let me arise, and away 
To the land that guards the dying day, 
Whose burning tear, the evening-star, 
Drops silently to the wave afar ; 
The land where summers never cease 
Their sunny psalm of light and peace. 
Whose moonlight, poured for years untold, 
Has drifted down in dust of gold ; 
Whose morning splendors, fallen in showers, 
Leave ceaseless sunrise in the flowers. 

There I will choose some eyrie in the hills, 
Where I may build, like a lonely bird, 
And catch the whispered music heard 
Out of the noise of human ills. 



So, I am here at last ; 
A purer world, whose feet the old, salt Past 
Washes against, and leaves it fresh and free 
As a new island risen from the sea. 

Three dreamy weeks we lay on Ocean's breast, 
Rocked asleep, by gentle winds caressed, 
Or crooned with wild wave-lullabies to rest. 



IO THE HERMITAGE. 

A memory of foam and glassy spray ; 

Wave chasing wave, like young sea-beasts at play ; 

Stretches of misty silver 'neath the moon, 

And night-airs murmuring many a quiet tune. 

Three long, delicious weeks' monotony 

Of sky, and stars, and sea, 

Broken midway by one day's tropic scene 

Of giant plants, tangles of luminous green, 

With fiery flowers and purple fruits between. 



I have found a spot for my hermitage, — 
No dank and sunless cave, — 
I come not for a dungeon, nor a cage, — 
Not to be Nature's slave, 
But, as a weary child, 
Unto the mother's faithful arms I flee, 
And seek the sunniest footstool at her knee, 
Where I may sit beneath caresses mild, 
And hear the sweet old songs that she will sing to 
me. 

'Tis a grassy mountain-nook, 
In a gorge, whose foaming brook 
Tumbles through from the heights above, 
Merrily leaping to the light 



THE HERMITAGE. II 

From the pine-wood's haunted gloom, — 

As a romping child, 

Affrighted, from a sombre room 

Leaps to the sunshine, laughing with delight : 

Be this my home, by man's tread undefiled. 

Here sounds no voice but of the mourning dove, 

Nor harsher footsteps on the sands appear 

Than the sharp, slender hoof-marks of the deer, 

Or where the quail has left a zizzag row 

Of lightly-printed stars her track to show. 

Above me frowns a front of rocky wall, 
Deep cloven into ruined pillars tall 
And sculptures strange ; bald to its dizzy edge, 
Save where, in some deep crevice of a ledge 
Buttressed by its black shadow hung below, 
A solitary pine has cleft the rock, — 
Straight as an arrow, feathered to the tip, 
As if a shaft from the moon-huntress' bow 
Had struck and grazed the cliff's defiant lip, 
And stood, still stiffly quivering with the shock. 

Beyond the gorge a slope runs half-way up, 
With hollow curve as for a giant's cup, 



12 THE HEBMITAGE. 

Brimming with blue pine-shadows : then in air 

The gray rock rises bare, 

Its front deep-fluted by the sculptor-storms 

In moulded columns, rounded forms, 

As if great organ-pipes were chiselled there, 

Whose anthems are the torrent's roar below, 

And chanting winds that through the pine-tops go. 

Here bursts of requiem music sink and rise, 

When the full moonlight, slowly streaming, lies 

Like panes of gold on some cathedral pave, 

While floating mists their silver incense wave, 

And from on high, through fleecy window-bars, 

Gaze down the saintly faces of the stars. 

Against the huge trunk of a storm-snapped tree, 
(Whose hollow, ready-hewn by long decay, 
Above, a chimney, lined with slate and clay, 
Below, a broad-arched fireplace makes for me,) 
I've built of saplings and long limbs a hut. 
The roof with lacing boughs is tightly shut, 
Thatched with thick-spreading palms of pine, 
And tangled over by a wandering vine, 
Uprooted from the woods close by, 
Whose clasping tendrils climb and twine, 
Waving their little hands on high, 



THE HERMITAGE. 1 3 

As if they loved to deck this nest of mine. 
Within, by smooth white stones from the brook's beach 
My rooms are separated, each from each. 
On yonder island-rock my table's spread, 
Brook-ringed, that no stray, fasting ant may come 
To make himself with my wild fare at home. 

Here will I live, and here my life shall be 
Serene, still, rooted steadfastly, 
Yet pointing skyward, and its motions keep 
A rhythmic balance, as that cedar tall, 
Whose straight shaft rises from the chasm there, 
Through the blue, hollow air, 
And, measuring the dizzy deep, 
Leans its long shadow on the rock's gray wall. 



Through the sharp gap of the gorge below, 
From my mountains' feet the gaze may go 
Over a stretch of fields, broad-sunned, 
Then glance beyond, 
Across the beautiful bay, 
To that dim ridge, a score of miles away, 
Lifting its clear-cut outline high, 
Azure with distance on the azure sky, 
2 



14 THE HERMITAGE. 

Whose flocks of white clouds brooding on its crests 

Have winged from ocean to their piny nests. 

Beyond the bright blue water's further rim, 

Where waves seem ripples on its far-off brim, 

The rich young city lies, 

Diminished to an ant-hill's size. 

I trace its steep streets, ribbing all the hill 

Like narrow bands of steel, 

Binding the city on the shifting sand : 

Thick-pressed between them stand 

Broad piles of buildings, pricked through here and 

there 
By a sharp steeple ; and above, the air 
Murky with smoke and dust, that seem to show 
The bright sky saddened by the sin below. 



The voice of my wild brook is marvellous ; 
Leaning above it from a jutting rock 
To watch the image of my face, that forms 
And breaks, and forms again (as the image of God 
Is broken and re-gathered in a soul,) 
I listen to the chords that sink and swell 
From many a little fall and babbling run. 
That hollow gurgle is the deepest base ; 
Over the pebbles gush contralto tones, 



TEE HERMITAGE. 1 5 

While shriller trebles tinkle merrily, 
Running, like some enchanted-fingered flute, 
Endless chromatics. 

Now it is the hum 
And roar of distant streets ; the rush of winds 
Through far-off forests : now the noise of rain 
Drumming the roof; the hiss of ocean-foam : 
Now the swift ripple of piano-keys 
In mad mazurkas, danced by laughing girls. 

So, night and day, the hurrying brook goes on ; 
Sometimes in noisy glee, sometimes far down, 
Silent along the bottom of the gorge, 
Like a deep passion hidden in the soul, 
That chafes in secret hunger for its sea : 
Yet not so still but that heaven finds its course ; 
And not so hid but that the yearning night 
Broods over it, and feeds it with her stars. 



When earth has Eden spots like this for man, 
Why will he drag his life where lashing storms 
Whip him indoors, the petulant weather's slave ? 
There he is but a helpless, naked snail, 
Except he wear his house close at his back. 
Here the wide air builds him his palace walls, — 



1 6 THE HERMITAGE. 

Some little corner of it roofed, for sleep ; 
Or he can lie all night, bare to the sky, 
And feel updrawn against the breast of heaven, 
Letting his thoughts stretch out among the stars, 
As the antennae of an insect grope 
Blindly for food, or as the ivy's shoots 
Clamber from cope and tower to find the light, 
And drink the electric pulses of the sun. 

As from that sun we draw the coarser fire 
That swells the veins, and builds the brain and bone, 
So from each star a finer influence streams, 
Kindling within the mortal chrysalis 
The first faint thrills of its new life to come. 



Here is no niggard gap of sky above, 
With murk and mist below, but all sides clear, — 
Not an inch bated from the full-swung dome ; 
Each constellation to the horizon's rim 
Keen-glittering, as if one only need 
Walk to the edge there, spread his wings, and float, 
The dark earth spurned behind, into the blue. 



I love thee, thou brown, homely, dear old Earth ! 






THE HERMITAGE. 1J 

Those fairer planets whither fate may lead, 

Whatever marvel be their bulk or speed, 

Ringed with what splendor, belted round with fire, 

In glory of perpetual moons arrayed, 

Can ne'er give back the glow and fresh desire 

Of youth in that old home where man had birth, 

Whose paths he trod through wholesome light and 

shade. 
Out of their silver radiance to thy dim 
And clouded orb his eye will turn, 
As an old man looks back to where he played 
About his father's hearth, and finds for him 
No splendor like the fires which there did burn. 



See : I am come to live alone with thee. 
Thou hast had many a one, grown old and worn, 
Come to thee weary and forlorn, 
Bent with the weight of human vanity. 
But I come with my life almost untried, 
In thy perpetual presence to abide. 
Teach me thy wisdom ; let me learn the flowers, 
And know the rocks and trees, 
And touch the springs of all thy hidden powers. 
Let the still gloom of thy rock-fastnesses 

2* 



1 8 THE HEM MIT AGE. 

Fall deep upon my spirit, till the voice 

Of brooks become familiar, and my heart rejoice 

With joy of birds and winds ; and all the hours, 

Unmaddened by the babble of vain men, 

Bring thy most inner converse to my ken. 

So shall it be, that, when I stand 

On that next planet's ruddy-shimmering strand, 

I shall not seem a pert and forward child 

Seeking to dabble in abstruser lore 

With alphabet unlearned, who in disgrace 

Returns, upon his primer yet to pore — 

But those examiners, all wise and mild, 

Shall gently lead me to my place, 

As one that faithfully did trace 

These simpler earthly records o'er and o'er. 



Beckoned at sunrise by the surfs white hand, 
I have strayed down to sit upon the beach, 
And hear the oratorio of the Sea. 
On this steep, crumbling bank, where the high tides 
Have crunched the earth away, a crooked oak — 
A hunch-backed dwarf, whose limbs, cramped down 

by gales, 
Have twisted stiffening back upon themselves — 
Spreads me a little arbor from the sun. 



THE HERMITAGE. 1 9 

On the brown, shining beach, all ripple-carved, 
Gleams now and then a pool ; so smooth and clear, 
That, though I cannot see the plover there 
Pacing its farther edge (so much he looks 
The color of the sand), yet I can trace 
His image hanging in the glassy brine — 
Slim legs and rapier-beak— like silver-plate 
With such a pictured bird clean-etched upon it. 

Beyond, long curves of little shallow waves 
Creep, tremulous with ripples, to the shore, 
Till the whole bay seems slowly sliding in, 
With edge of snow that melts against the sand. 

Above its twinkling blue, where ceaselessly 
The white curve of a slender arm of foam 
Is reached along the water, and withdrawn, 
A flock of sea-birds darken into specks ; 
Then whiten, as they wheel with sunlit wings, 
Winking and wavering against the sky. 

The earth for form, the sea for coloring, 
And overhead, fair daughters of the two, 
The clouds, whose curves were moulded on the hills, 
Whose tints of pearl and foam the ocean gave. 



20 THE HEBMITAGE. 

O Sea, thou art all beautiful, but dumb ! 
Thou hast no utterance articulate 
For human ears ; only a restless moan 
Of barren tides, that loathe the living earth 
As alien, striving towards the barren moon. 
Thou art no longer infinite to man : 
Has he not touched thy boundary-shores, and now 
Laid his electric fetters round thy feet ? 
Thy dumb moan saddens me ; let me go back 
And listen to the silence of the hills. 



At last I live alone : 
No human judgment-seats are here 
Thrust in between man and his Maker's throne, 
With praise to covet, or with frown to fear : 
No small, distorted judgments bless, or blame ; 
Only to Him I own 
The inward sense of worth, or flush of shame. 

God made the man alone ; 
And all that first grand morning walked he so. 
Then was he strong and wise, till at the noon, 
When tired with joyous wonder he lay prone 
For rest and sleep, God let him know 
The subtile sweetness that is bound in Two. 



THE HERMITAGE. 21 

Man rises best alone : 
Upward his thoughts stream, like the leaping flame, 
Whose base is tempest-blown ; 
Upward and skyward, since from thence they came, 
And thither they must flow. 
But when in twos we go, 
The lightnings of the brain weave to and fro, 
Level across the abyss that parts us all ; 
If upward, only slantwise, as we scale 
Slowly together that night-shrouded wall 
Which bounds our reason, lest our reason fail. 
If linked in threes, and fives, 
However heavenward the spirit strives, 
The lowest stature draws the highest down, — 
The king must keep the level of the clown. 
The grosser matter has the greater power 
In all attraction ; every hour 
We slide and slip to lower scales, 
Till weary aspiration fails, 
And that keen fire which might have pierced the 

skies, 
Is quenched and killed in one another's eyes. 



A child had blown a bubble fair 
That floated in the sunny air : 



2 2 THE HERMITAGE. 

A hundred rainbows danced and swung 
Upon its surface, as it hung 
In films of changing color rolled, 
Crimson, and amethyst, and gold, 
With faintest streaks of azure sheen, 
And curdling rivulets of green. 
"If so the surface shines," cried he, 
"What marvel must the centre be !" 
He caught it — on his empty hands 
A drop of turbid water stands ! 



With men, to help the moments fly, 
I tossed the ball of talk on high, 
With glancing jest, and random stings, 
Grazing the crests of thoughts and things, 
In many a shifting ray of speech 
That shot swift sparkles, each to each. 
I thought, "Ah, could we pierce below 
To inner soul, what depths would show !" 
In friendships many, loves a few, 
I pierced the inner depths, and knew 
'Twas but the shell that splendor caught : 
Within, one sour and selfish thought. 



THE HERMITAGE. 2% 

I found a grotto, hidden in the gorge, 
Paved by the brook in rare Mosaic work 
Of sand, and lucent depths, and shadow-streaks 
Veining the amber of the sun-dyed wave. 
Between two mossy masses of gray rock 
Lay a clear basin, which, with sun and shade 
Bewitched, a great transparent opal made, 
Over whose broken rims the water ran. 
Above each rocky side leaned waving trees 
Whose lace of branches wove a restless roof, 
Trailed over by green vines that sifted down 
A dust of sunshine through the chilly shade. 

Leaning against a trunk of oak, rock-wedged, 
Whose writhen roots were clenched upon the stones, 
I was a Greek, and caught the sudden flash 
Of a scared Dryad's vanishing robe, and heard 
The laughter, half-suppressed, of hiding Fauns. 
Up the dark stairway of the tumbling stream 
The sun shot through, and struck each foamy fall 
Into a silvery veil of dazzling fire. 
Along its shady course, the tossing drops 
By some swift sunbeam ever caught, were lit 
To sparkling stars, that fell, and flashed, and fell, 
Incessantly rekindled. Bubble-troops 



24 THE HERMITAGE. 

Came dancing by, to break just at my feet ; 
Lo ! every bubble mirrored the whole scene- 
Trie streak of blue between the roofing-boughs, 
And on it my own face in miniature 
Quaintly distorted, as if some small elf 
Peered up at me beneath his glassy dome. 



If men but knew the mazes of the brain 
And all its crowded pictures, they would need 
No Louvre or Vatican : behind our brows 
Intricate galleries are built, whose walls 
Are rich with all the splendors of a life. 
Each crimson leaf of every autumn walk, 
Dewdrops of childhood's mornings, every scene 
From any window where we've chanced to stand, 
Forgotten sunsets, summer afternoons, 
Hang fresh in those immortal galleries. 
Few ever can unlock them, till great Death 
Unrolls our life-long memory as a scroll. 
One key is solitude, and silence one, 
And one a quiet mind, content to rest 
In God's sufficiency, and take His world, 
Not dabbling all the Master's work to death 
With our small interference. God is God. 



THE HERMITAGE. 2$ 

Yet we must give the children leave to use 
Our garden-tools, though they spoil tool and plant 
In learning. So the Master may not scorn 
Our awkwardness, as with these bungling hands, 
We try to uproot the ill, and plant with good 
Life's barren soil : the child is learning use. 
Perhaps the angels even are forbid 
To laugh at us, or may not care to laugh, 
With kind eyes pitying our little hurts. 

'Tis ludicrous that man should think he roams 
Freely at will a world planned for his use. 
Lo, what a mite he is ! Snatched hither and yon, 
Tossed round the sun, and in its orbit flashed 
Round other centres, orbits without end ; 
His bit of brain too small to even feel 
The spinning of the little hailstone, Earth. 
So his creeds glibly prate of choice and will, 
When his whole fate is an invisible speck 
Whirled through the orbits of Eternity. 



We think that we believe 
That human souls shall live, and live, 
When trees have rotted into mould, 
And all the rocks which these long hills enfold 

3 



26 THE HE EMIT AGE. 

Have crumbled, and beneath new oceans lie. 

But why — ah, why — 

If puny man is not indeed to die, 

Watch I with such disdain 

That human speck creeping along the plain, 

And turn with such a careless scorn of men 

Back to the mountain's brow again, 

And feel more pleased that some small, fluttering 

thing 
Trusts me and hovers near on fearless wing, 
Than if the proudest man in all the land 
Had offered me in friendliness his hand ? 



However small the present creature man, — 
Ridiculous imitation of the gods, 
Weak plagiarism on some completer world, — 
Yet we can boast of that strong race to be. 
The savage broke the attraction which binds fast 
The fibres of the oak, and we to-day 
By cunning chemistry can force apart 
The elements of the air. That coming race 
Shall loose the bands by which the earth attracts ; 
A drop of occult tincture, a spring touched 
Shall outwit gravitation ; men shall float, 
Or lift the hills and set them where they will. 



THE HEEMITAGE. 2 J 

The savage crossed the lake, and we the sea. 
That coming race shall have no bounds or bars, 
But, like the fledgling eaglet, leave the nest, — 
Our earthly eyrie up among the stars, — 
And freely soar, to tread the desolate moon, 
Or mingle with the neighbor folk of Mars. 
Yea, if the savage learned by sign and sound 
To bridge the chasm to his fellow's brain, 
Till now we flash our whispers round the globe, 
That race shall signal over the abyss 
To those bright souls who throng the outer courts 
Of life, impatient who shall greet men first 
And solve the riddles that we die to know. 



'Tis night : I sit alone among the hills. 
There is no sound, except the sleepless brook, 
Whose voice comes faintly from the depths below 
Through the thick darkness, or the somber pines 
That slumber, murmuring sometimes in their dreams. 
Hark ! on a fitful gust there came the sound 
Of the tide rising yonder on the bay. 
It dies again : 'twas like the rustling noise 
Of a great army mustering secretly. 
There rose an owl's cry, from the woods below, 
Like a lost spirit's. — Now all's still again. — 



28 THE HERMITAGE. 

'Tis almost fearful to sit here alone 

And feel the deathly silence and the dark. 

I will arise and shout, and hear at least 

My own voice answer. — Not an echo even ! 

I wish I had not uttered that wild cry ; 

It broke with such a shock upon the air, 

Whose leaden silence closed up after it, 

And seemed to clap together at my ears. 

The black depths of these muffled woods are 

thronged 
With shapes that wait some signal to swoop out, 
And swirl around and madden me with fear. 
I will go climb that bare and rocky height 
Into the clearer air. 

So, here I breathe ; 
That silent darkness smothered me. 

Away 
Across the bay, the city with its lights 
Twinkling against the horizon's dusky line, 
Looks a sea-dragon, crawled up on the shore, 
With rings of fire across his rounded back, 
And luminous claws spread out among the hills. 
Above, the glittering heavens. — Magnificent ! 
Oh, if a man could be but as a star, 



THE HEBMITAGE. 29 

Having his place appointed, here to rise, 
And there to set, unchanged by earthly* change, 
Content if it can guide some wandering bark, 
Or be a beacon to some home-sick soul ! 

Those city-lights again : they draw my gaze 
As if some secret human sympathy 
Still held my heart down from the lonely heaven. 
A new-born constellation, setting there 
Below the Sickle's ruby-hilted curve, 

They gleam Not so ! No constellation they ; 

I mock the sad, strong stars that never fail 

In their eternal patience ; from below 

Comes that pale glare, like the faint, sulphurous 

flame 
Which plays above the ashes of a fire : 
So trembles the dull flicker of those lamps 
Over the burnt-out energies of man. 
3* 



30 THE HEBM1TAGE. 



II 



A month since I last laid my pencil down, — 
An April, fairer than the Atlantic June, 
Whose calendar of perfect days was kept 
By daily blossoming of some new flower. 
The fields, whose carpets now were silken white, 
Next week were orange-velvet, next, sea-blue. 
It was as if some central fire of bloom, 
From which in other climes a random root 
Is now and then shot up, here had burst forth 
And overflowed the fields, and set the land 
Aflame with flowers. I watched them day by day, 
How at the dawn they wake, and open wide 
Their little petal-windows, how they turn 
Their slender necks to follow round the sun, 
And how the passion they express all day 
In burning color, steals forth with the dew 
All night in odor. 

I have wandered much 
These weeks, but everywhere a restless mind 
Has dogged me, like the shadow at my heels. 



THE HE EMIT AGE. 3 1 

Sometimes I watched the morning mist arise, 

Like an imprisoned Genie from the stream, 

And wished that death would come on me like dawn, 

Drawing the spirit, that white, vaporous mist, 

Up from this noisy, fretted stream of life, 

To fall where God will, in his bounteous showers. 

Sometimes I walked at sunset on the edge 

Of the steep gorge, and saw my shadow pace 

Along a shadow-wall across the abyss, 

And felt that we, with all our phantom deeds, 

Are but far-slanted shadows of some life 

That walks between our planet and its God. 

All the long nights — those memory-haunted nights, 

When sleepless conscience would not let me sleep, 

But stung, and stung, and pointed to the world 

Which like a coward I had left behind, 

I watched the heavens, where week by week the moon 

Slow swelled its silver bud, blossomed full gold, 

And slowly faded. 



Laid the pencil down — 
Why not ? Are there not books enough ? Is man 
A sick child that must be amused by songs, 
Or be made sicker with their foolish noise ? 



32 THE HERMITAGE. 

Then illness came : I should have argued, once, 
That the ill body gave me those ill thoughts ; 
But I have learned that spirit, though it be 
Subtile, and hard to trace, is mightier 
Than matter, and I know the poisoned mind 
Poisoned its shell. Three days of fever-fire 
Burned out my strength, leaving me scarcely power 
To reach the brook's side and my scanty food. 
What would I not have given to hear the voice 
Of some one who would raise my throbbing head 
And shade the fevering sun, and cool my hand 
In her "moist palms ! But I lay there, alone. 
Blessed be sickness, which cuts down our pride 
And bares our helplessness. I have had new thoughts. 
I think the fever burned away some lies 
Which clogged the truthful currents of the brain. 
Am I quite happy here ? Have I the right, 
As wholly independent, to scorn men ? 
What do I owe them — self? Should I be I, 
Born in these hills ? A savage rather ! Food, 
The sailor-bread ? Yes, that took mill and men : 
Yet flesh and fowl are free ; but powder and gun — 
What human lives went to the making of them ? 
I am dependent as the villager 
Who lives by the white wagon's daily round. 



THE HERMITAGE. 33 

Yea, better feed upon the ox, to which 

The knife is mercy after slavery, 

Than kill the innocent birds, and trustful deer 

Whose big blue eyes have almost human pain ; 

That's murder 1 

I scorned books : to those same books 
I owe the power to scorn them. 

I despised 
Men : from themselves I drew the pure ideal 
By which to measure them. 

At woman's love 
I laughed : but to that love I owe 
The hunger for a more abiding love. 
Their nestlings in our hearts leave vacant there 
These hollow places, like a lark's round nest 
Left empty in the grass, and filled with flowers. 

What do I here alone ? 'Twas not so strange, 
Weary of discords, that I chose to hear 
The one, clear, perfect note of solitude ; 
But now it plagues the ear, that one shrill note : 
Give me the chords back, even though some ring false. 



Unmarried to the steel, the flint is cold : 
Strike one to the other, and they wake in fire. 



34 THE HERMITAGE. 

A solitary fagot will not burn : 
Bring two, and cheerily the flame ascends. 
Alone, man is a lifeless stone ; or lies 
A charring ember, smouldering into ash. 



If the man riding yonder looks a speck, 
The town an ant-hill, that is but the trick 
Of our perspective : wisdom merely means 
Correction of the angles at the eye. 
I hold my hand up, so, before my face, — 
It blots ten miles of country, and a town. 
This little lying lens, that twists the rays, 
So cheats the brain that My house, My affairs, 
My hunger, or My happiness, My ache, 
And My religion, fill immensity ! 
Yours merely dot the landscape casually. 
'Tis well God does not measure a man's worth 
By the image on his neighbor's retina. 



I am alone : the birds care not for me, 
Except to sing a little farther off, 
With looks that say, ' ' What does this fellow here ? ,J 
The loud brook babbles only for the flowers : 
The mountain and the forest take me not 
Into their meditations ; I disturb 



THE HERMITAGE. 35 

Their silence, as a child that drags his toy 
Across a chapel's porch. The viewless ones 
Who flattered me to claim their company 
By gleams of thought they tossed to me for alms, 
About their grander matters turn, nor deign 
To notice me, unless it were to say- 
As we put off a troublesome child — " There, go ! 
Men are your fellows, go and mate with them 1" 



If I could find one soul that would not lie, 
I would go back, and we would arm our hands, 
And strike at every ugly weed that stands 

In God's wide garden of the world, and try, 
Obedient to the Gardener's commands, 

To set some smallest flowers before we die. 

One such I had found, — 
But she was bound, 
Fettered and led, bid for and sold, 
Chained to a stone by a ring of gold. 

In a stony sense the stone loved her, too : 
Between our places the river was broad, 
Should she tread on a broken heart to go through- 



36 THE HEEMITAGE. 

Could she put a man's life in mid-stream to be trod, 
To come over dry-shod ? 



Shame ! that a man with hand and brain 
Should, like a love-lorn girl, complain, 
Rhyming his dainty woes anew, 
When there is honest work to do ! 

What work, what work ? Is God not wise 

To rule the world He could devise ? 

Yet see thou, though the realm be His, 

He governs it by deputies. 

Enough to know of Chance and Luck, 

The stroke we choose to strike is struck ; 

The deed we slight will slighted be, 

In spite of all Necessity. 

The Parcae's web of good and ill 

They weave. with human shuttles still, 

And fate is fate through man's free will. 



With sullen thoughts that smoulder hour by hour, 
In vague expectancy of help or hope 
Which still eludes my brain, waiting I sit 
Like a blind beggar at a palace-gate, 



THE HERMITAGE. 37 

Who hears the rustling past of silks, and airs 
Of costly odor mock him blowing by, 
And feels within a dull and aching wish* 
That the proud wall would let some coping down 
To crush him dead, and let him have his rest. 

No help from men : they could not, if they would. 
And God ? He lets his world be wrung with pain. 
No help at all then ? Let life be in vain : 
To get no help is surely greatest gain ; 
To taunt the hunger down is sweetest food. 



O mocker, Memory ! From what floating cloud, 
Or from what witchery of the haunted wood, 
Or faintest perfumes, softly drifting through 
The lupines' lattice-bars of white and blue, 
Steals back upon my soul this weaker mood ? 
My heart is dreaming ; — in a shadowy room 
I breathe the vague scent of a jasmin-bloom 
That floats on waves of music, softer played, 
Till song and odor all the brain pervade ; 
Swiftly across my cheek there sweeps the thrill 
Of burning lips, — then all is hushed and still ; 
And round the vision in unearthly awe 
Deeps of enchanted starlight seem to draw, 
4 



38 THE HEBMITAGE. 

In which my soul sinks, falling noiselessly, — 
As from a lone ship, far-orT, in the night, 
Out of a child's hand slips a pebble white, 
Glimmering and fading down the awful sea. 



That night, which pushed me out of Paradise, 
When the last guest had taken his mask of smiles 
And gone, she wheeled a sofa from the light 
Where I sat touching the piano-keys, 
And begged me play her weariness away. 
I played all sweet and solemn airs I knew, 
And when, with music mesmerized, she slept, 
I made the deep chords tell her dreams my love. 
Once, when they grew too passionate, I saw 
The faint blush ripen in their glow, and chide 
Even in dreams, the rash, tumultuous thought. 
Then when I made them say, " Sleep on, dream on, 
For now we are together ; when thou wak'st 
Forevermore we are alone — alone/' 
, She sighed in sleep, and waked not : then I rose, 
And softly stooped my head, and, half in awe, 
Half passion-rapt, I kissed her lips farewell. 

Only the meek-mouthed blossoms kiss I now, 

Or the cold cheek that sometimes comes at night 
In haunted dreams, and brushes past my own. 



THE HERMITAGE. 39 

Ah, what hast thou to do with me, sweet song — 
Why hauntest thou and vexest so my dreams ? 

Have I not turned away from thee so long — 
So long, and yet the starry midnight seems 

Astir with tremulous music, as of old,— 

Forbidden memories opening, fold on fold ? 

O ghost of Love, why, with thy rose-leaf lips, 
Dost thou still mock my sleep with kisses warm, 

Torturing my dreams with touching finger-tips, 
That madden me to clasp thy phantom form ? 

Have I not earned, by all these tears, at last, 

The right to rest untroubled by that Past ? 



Unto thy patient heart, my mother Earth, 
I come, a weary child. 

I have no claim, save that thou gav'st me birth, 
And hast sustained me with thy nurture mild. 
I have stood up alone, these many years ; 
Now let me come and lie upon my face, 
And spread my hands among the dewy grass, 
Till the slow wind's mesmeric touches pass 
Above my brain, and all its throbbing chase ; 
Into thy bosom take these bitter tears, 



40 THE HERMITAGE. 

And let them seem unto the innocent flowers 

Only as dew, or heaven's gentle showers ; 

Till, quieted and hushed against thy breast, 

I can forget to weep, 

And sink at last to sleep, — 

Long sleep and rest. 



Her face ! 
It must have been her face, — 
No other one was ever half so fair, — 
No other head e'er bent with such meek grace 
Beneath that weight of beautiful blonde hair. 
In a carriage on the street of the town, 
Where I had strayed in walking from the bay, 
Just as the sun was going down, 
Shielding her sight from his latest ray, 
She sat, and scanned with eager eye 
The faces of the passers-by. 
Whom was she looking for ? Not me — 
Yet what wild purpose can it be 
That tempted her to this wild land ? 
— I marked that on her lifted hand 
The diamonds no longer shine 
Of the ring that meant, not mine — not mine ! 



THE HERMITAGE. 4 1 

Ah fool — fool — fool ! crawl back to thy den, 
Like a wounded beast as thou art, again ; 
Whosever she be, not thine — not thine ! 



I sat last night on yonder ridge of rocks 
To see the sun set over Tamelpais, 
Whose tented peak, suffused with rosy mist, 
Blended the colors of the sea and sky 
And made the mountain one great amethyst 
Hanging against the sunset. 

In the west 
There lay two clouds which parted company, 
Floating like two soft-breasted swans, and sailed 
Farther and farther separate, till one stayed 
To make a mantle for the evening-star ; 
The other wept itself away in rain. 
A fancy seized me ; — if, in other worlds, 
That Spirit from afar should call to me, 
Across some starry chasm impassable, 
Weeping, ' ' Oh, hadst thou only come to me ! — 
I loved you so ! — I prayed each night that God 
Would send you to me ! Now, alas ! too late, 
Too late — farewell !" and still again, " farewell !" 
Like the pulsation of a silenced bell 
Whose sobs beat on within the brain. 



42 THE HEBMITAQE. 

I rose, 
And smote my staff strongly against the ground, 
And set my face homeward, and set my heart 
Firm in a passionate purpose : there, in haste, 
With that one echo goading me to speed, 
" If it should be too late — if it should be 
Too late — too late I" I took a pen and wrote : 

" Dear Soul, if I am mad to speak to thee, 
And this faint glimmer which I call a hope 
Be but the corpse-light on the grave of hope — 
If thou, O darling Star, art in the West 
To be my Evening-star, and watch my day 
Fade slowly into desolate twilight, burn 
This folly in the flames ; and scattered with 
Its ashes, let my madness be forgot. 
But if not so, oh be my Morning-star, 
And crown my East with splendor : come to me !" 



A stern, wild, broken place for a man to walk 
And muse on broken fortunes ; a rare place,. — 
There in the Autumn weather, cool and still, 
With the warm sunshine clinging round the rocks 
Softly, in pity, like a woman's love, — 
To wait for some one who can never come — 



THE HERMITAGE. 43 

As a man there was waiting. Overhead 
A happy bird sang quietly to himself, 
Unconscious of such sombre thoughts below, 
To which the song was background : — 

' ' Yet how men 
Sometimes will struggle, writhe, and scream at death ! 
It were so easy now, in the mild air, 
To close the senses, slowly sleep, and die ; 
To cease to be the shaped and definite cloud, 
And melt away into the fathomless blue ; — 
Only to touch this crimson thread of life, 
Whose steady ripple pulses in my wrist, 
And watch the little current soak the grass, 
Till the haze came, then darkness, and then*rest. 
Would God be angry if I stopped one life 
Among his myriads — such a worthless one ? 
If I should pray, I wonder would he send 
An angel down out of that great, white cloud, 
(He surely could spare one from praising Him, ) 
To tell if there is any better way 

Than Look ! Why, that is grand, now ! (Am 

I mad ? 
I did not think I should go mad !) That's grand — 
One of the blessed spirits come like this 



44 THE HEBMITAGE. 

To meet a poor, lean man among the rocks, 
And answer questions for him ?" 

There she stood, 
With blonde hair blowing back, as if the breeze 
Blew a light out of it, that ever played 
And hovered at her shoulders. Such blue eyes 
Mirrored the dreamy mountain distances, — 
(Yet, are the angels' faces thin and wan 
Like that ; and do they have such mouths, so drawn, 
As if a sad song, some sad time, had died 
Upon the lips, and left its echo there ?) 

And the man rose, and stood with folded hands 
And head bent, and his downcast looks in awe 
Touching her garment's hem, that, when she spoke, 
Trembled a little where it met her feet. 



"I am come, because you called to me to come. 
What were all other voices when I heard 
The voice of my own soul's soul call to me? 
You knew I loved you — oh, you must have known ! 
Was it a noble thing to do, you think, 
To leave a lonely girl to die down there 



THE HERMITAGE. 45 

In the great empty world, and come up here 
To make a martyr's pillar of your pride ? 
There has been nobler work done, there in the world, 
Than you have done this year 1" 

Then cried the man : 
" O voice that I have prayed for — O sad voice, 
And woful eyes, spare me if I have sinned ! 
There was a little ring you used to wear — " 

' ' O strange, wild Fates, that balance bliss and woe 
On such poor straws ! It was a brother's gift. " 

1 'You never told me — " 

"Did you ever ask ?" 

"You, too, were surely prouder then than now !" 

" Dear, I am sadder now : the head must bend 
A little, when one's weeping. " 

Then the man, — 
While half his mind, bewildered, at a flash 
Took in the wide, lone place, the singing bird, 
The sunshine streaming past them like a wind, 
And the broad tree that moved as tho' it breathed : 



46 THE HERMITAGE. 

"Oh, if 'tis possible that in the world 
There lies some low, mean work for me to do, 
Let me go there alone : I am ashamed 
To wear life's crown when I flung down its sword. 
Crammed full of pride, and lust, and littleness, 
O God, I am not worthy of thy gifts ! 
Let me find penance, till, years hence, perchance, 
Made pure by toil, and scourged with pain and 
prayer — " 

Then a voice answered thro' His creature's lips — 
"God asks no penance but a better life. 
He purifies by pain — He only ; 'tis 
A remedy too dangerous for our 
Blind pharmacy. Lo ! we have tried that way, 
And borne what fruit, or blossoms even, save one 
Poor passion-flower ! Come, take thy happiness ; 
In happy hearts are all the sunbeams forged 
That brighten up our weatherbeaten world. 
Come back with me — Come ! for I love you — Come ! " 



If it was not a dream : perchance it was — 
Often it seems so, and I wonder when 



THE HEBMITAGE. 47 

I shall awaken on the mountain-side, 
With a little bitter taste left in the mouth 
Of too much sleep, or too much happiness, 
And sigh, and wish that I might dream again. 



II 

SUNDOWN. 

A SEA of splendor in the West, 
Purple, and pearl, and gold, 
With milk-white ships of cloud, whose sails 
Slowly the winds unfold. 



Brown cirrus-bars, like ribbed beach-sand, 

Cross the blue upper dome ; 
And nearer flecks of feathery white 

Blow over them like foam. 



But when that transient glory dies 

Into the twilight gray, 
And leaves me on the beach alone 

Beside the glimmering bay ; 



SUNDOWN. 49 

And when I know that, late or soon, 

Love's glory finds a grave, 
And hearts that danced like dancing foam 

Break like the breaking wave ; 



A little dreary, homeless thought 

Creeps sadly over me, 
Like the shadow of a lonely cloud 

Moving along the sea. 



Ill 

THE ARCH. 

JUST where the street of the village ends, 
Over the road an oak-tree tall, 
Curving in more than a crescent, bends 

With an arch like the gate of a Moorish wall. 



Over across the river there, 

Looking under the arch, one sees 

The sunshine slant through the distant air, 
And burn on the cliff and the tufted trees. 



Each day, hurrying through the town, 

I stop an instant, early or late, 
As I cross the street, and glancing down 

I catch a glimpse through the Moorish gate. 



THE ARCH. 51 

Only a moment there I stand, 

But I look through that loop in the dusty air, 
Into a far-off fairy land, 

Where all seems calm, and kind, and fair. 



So sometimes at the end of a thought, 
Where with a vexing doubt we've striven, 

A sudden, sunny glimpse is caught 

Of an open arch, and a peaceful heaven. 



IV 
APRIL IN OAKLAND.* 

WAS there last night a snow-storm ?- 
So thick the orchards stand, 
With drift on drift of blossom-flakes 
Whitening all the land. 

Or have the waves of life that swelled 

The green buds, day by day, 
Broken at once in clinging foam 

And scattered odor-spray? 

The wind comes drowsy with the breath 

Of cherry and of pear, 
Sighing their perfume-laden wings 

No more of sweet can bear. 

* California.' 



APRIL IN OAKLAND. 53 

Over the garden-gateway 

That parts the tufted hedge, 
Rimming the idly-twinkling bay 

Sleeps the blue mountains' edge. 

Yon fleece of clouds in heaven, 

So delicate and fair, 
Seems a whole league of orchard-bloom 

Sailing along the air. 

Oh, loveliness of nature ! 

Oh, sordid minds of men ! 
Without, a world of bloom and balm — 

A sour, sad soul within. 

O winds that sweep the orchard 

With Orient spices sweet, 
Why bring ye with that desolate sound 

The dead leaves to my feet ? 

Ah, sweeter were the fragrance 

That I to-day have found, 
If last year's crumbled leaves of love 

Were buried under ground ; 



54 APRIL IN OAKLAND. 

And fairer were the shadow troops 
That fleck the distant hill, 

If shades of clouds that will not pass 
Dimmed not my memory still. 



Better than all the beauty 

Which cloud or blossom shows, 

Is the blue sky that arches all 
With measureless repose. 

And better than the bright blue sky, 

To know that far away 
Sweeps all the silent host of stars 

Behind the veil of day. 

And best to feel that there and here, 

About us and above, 
Move on the purposes of God 

In justice and in love. 



EASTERN WINTER. 

COLD — cold — the very sun looks cold, 
With those thin rays of chilly gold 
Laid on that gap of bluish sky 
That glazes like a dying eye. 



The naked trees are shivering, 
Each cramped and bare branch quivering, 
Cutting the bleak wind into blades, 
Whose edge to brain and bone invades. 



That hard ground seems to ache, all day, 
Even for a sheet of snow, to lay 
Upon its icy feet and knees, 
Stretched stiffly there to freeze and freeze. 



56 EASTERN WINTER. 

And yon shrunk mortal — what's within 
That nipped and winter-shrivelled skin ? 
The pinched face drawn in peevish lines, 
The voice that through his blue lips whines, 



The frost has got within, you see, — 
Left but a selfish me and me : 
The heart is chilled, its nerves are numb, 
And love has long been frozen dumb. 



Ah, give me back the clime I know, 

Where all the year geraniums blow, 

And hyacinth-buds bloom white for snow ; 



Where hearts beat warm with life's delight, 
Through radiant winter's sunshine bright, 
And summer's starry deeps of night ; 



Where man may let earth's beauty thaw 
The wintry creed which Calvin saw, 
That God is only Power and Law ; 



SLEEPING. 57 

And out of Nature's bible prove, 
That here below as there above 
Our Maker — Father — God — is Love. 



VI 
SLEEPING. 



HUSHED within her quiet bed 
She is lying, all the night, 
In her pallid robe of white, 
Eyelids on the pure eyes pressed, 
Soft hands folded on the breast, — 
And you thought I meant it — dead ? 

Nay ! I smile at your shocked face : 
In the morning she will wake, 
Turn her dreams to sport, and make 
All the household glad and gay, 
Yet for many a merry day, 

With her beauty and her grace. 



58 SLEEPING. 

But some Summer 'twill be said — 
"She is lying, all the night, 
In her pallid robe of white, 
Eyelids on the tired eyes pressed, 
Hands that cross upon the breast :" 
We shall understand it — dead ! 



Yet 'twill only be a sleep : 

When, with songs and dewy light, 
Morning blossoms out of Night, 
She will open her blue eyes 
'Neath the palms of Paradise, 

While we foolish ones shall weep. 



VII 
STARLIGHT. 

THEY think me daft, who nightly meet 
My face turned starward, while my feet 
Stumble along the unseen street ; 

But should man's thoughts have only room 
For Earth, his cradle and his tomb, 
Not for his Temple's grander gloom ? 

And must the prisoner all his days 
Learn but his dungeon's narrow ways 
And never through its grating gaze ? 

Then let me linger in your sight, 

My only amaranths ! blossoming bright 

As over Eden's cloudless night. 



60 STARLIGHT. 

The same vast belt, and square, and crown, 
That on the Deluge glittered down, 
And lit the roofs of Bethlehem town ! 

Ye make me one with all my race, 
A victor over time and space, 
Till all the path of men I pace. 

Far-speeding backward in my brain 
We build the Pyramids again, 
And Babel rises from the plain ; 

And climbing upward on your beam9» 
I peer within the Patriarch's dreams, 
Till the deep sky with angels teems. 

My Comforters ! — Yea, why not mine ? 
The power that kindled you doth shine, 
In man, a mastery divine ; 

That Love which throbs in every star, 
And quickens all the worlds afar, 
Beats warmer where his children are. 



STARLIGHT. 6 1 

The shadow of the wings of Death 
Broods over us ; we feel his breath : 
"Resurgam," still the spirit saith. 

These tired feet, this weary brain, 
Blotted with many a mortal stain, 
May crumble earthward — not in vain. 

With swifter feet that shall not tire, 
Eyes that shall fail not at your fire, 
Nearer your splendors I aspire. 
6 



VIII 
A DEAD BIRD IN WINTER. 

THE cold, hard sky and hidden sun, 
The stiffened trees that shiver so, 
With bare twigs naked every one 

To these harsh winds that freeze the snow, 



It was a bitter place to die 

Poor birdie ! Was it easier, then, 
On such a world to shut thine eye, 

And sleep away from life, than when 

The apple-blossoms tint the air, 
And, twittering in the sunny trees, 

Thy fellow-songsters flit and pair, 

Breasting the warm, caressing breeze ? 



A DEAD BIRD IN WINTER, 63 

Nay, it were easiest, I feel, 

Though 'twere a brighter Earth to lose, 
To let the summer shadows steal 

About thee, bringing their repose ; 

When the noon hush was on the air, 

And on the flowers the warm sun shined, 

And Earth seemed all so sweet and fair, 
That He who made it must be kind. 

So I, too, could not bear to go 

From Life in this unfriendly clime, 

To lie beneath the crusted snow, 

When the dead grass stands stiff with rime ; 

But under those blue skies of home, 

Far easier were it to lie down, 
Where the perpetual violets bloom, 

And the rich moss grows never brown ; 

Where linnets never cease to build 

Their nests, in boughs that always wave 

To odorous airs, with blessing filled 

From nestled blossoms round my grave. 



IX 

SPRING TWILIGHT. 

SINGING in the rain, robin ? 
Rippling out so fast 
All thy flute-like notes, as if 
This singing were thy last ! 

After sundown, too, robin ? 

Though the fields are dim, 
And the trees grow dark and still, 

Dripping from leaf and limb. 

'Tis heart-broken music — 
That sweet, faltering strain,- — 

Like a mingled memory, 
Half ecstasy, half pain. 



SPUING TWILIGHT. 65 

Surely thus to sing, robin, 

Thou must have in sight 
Beautiful skies behind the shower, 

And dawn beyond the night. 



Would thy faith were mine, robin ! 

Then, though night were long, 
All its silent hours should melt 

Their sorrow into song. 
6* 



X 

EVENING. 

THE Sun is gone : those glorious chariot-wheels 
Have sunk their broadening spokes of flame, 
and left 
Thin rosy films wimpled across the West, 
Whose last faint tints melt slowly in the blue, 
As the last trembling cadence of a song 
Fades into silence sweeter than all sound. 



Now the first stars begin to tremble forth 
Like the first instruments of an orchestra 
Touched softly, one by one. — There in the East 
Kindles the glory of moonrise : how its waves 
Break in a surf of silver on the clouds ! — 
White, motionless clouds, like soft and snowy wings 
Which the great Earth spreads, sailing round the Sun. 



EVENING. 67 

O silent stars ! that over ages past 
Have shone serenely as ye shine to-night, 
Unseal, unseal the secret that ye keep ! 
Is it not time to tell us why we live ? 
Through all these shadowy corridors of years, 
(Like some gray Priest, who through the Mysteries 
Led the blindfolded Neophyte in fear, ) 
Time leads us blindly onward, till in wrath 
Tired Life would seize and throttle its stern guide, 
And force him tell us whither and how long. 
But Time gives back no answer — only points 
With motionless finger to eternity, 
Which deepens over us, as that deep sky — 
Darkens above me : only its vestibule 
Glimmers with scattered stars ; and down the West 
A silent meteor slowly slides afar, 
As though, pacing the garden-walks of heaven, 
Some musing seraph had let fall a flower. 



XI 
THE ORGAN. 

IT is no harmony of human making, 
Though men have built those pipes of bur- 
nished gold ; 
Their music, out of Nature's heart awaking, 
Forever new, forever is of old. 



Man makes not — only finds — all earthly beauty, 
Catching a thread of sunshine here and there, 

Some shining pebble in the path of duty, 
Some echo of the songs that flood the air. 



That prelude is a wind among the willows, 
Rising until it meets the torrent's roar ; 

Now a wild ocean, beating his great billows 
Among the hollow caverns of the shore. 



THE ORGAN. 69 

It is the voice of some vast people, pleading 

For justice from an ancient shame and wrong, — 

The tramp of God's avenging armies, treading 
With shouted thunders of triumphant song. 



O soul, that sittest chanting dreary dirges, 
Couldst thou but rise on some divine desire, 

As those deep chords upon their swelling surges 
Bear up the wavering voices of the choir ! 



But ever lurking in the heart, there lingers 

'The trouble of a false and jarring tone, 
As some great Organ which unskilful fingers 
Vex into discords when the Master's gone. 



XII 
A MEMORY. 

UPON the barren, lonely hill 
We sat to watch the sinking sun ; 
Below, the land grew dim and still, 

Whose evening shadow had begun. 
Her finger parted the shut book, — 

At Aylmer's Field the leaf was turned — 
Round her meek head and sainted look 

The sunset like a halo burned. 
She knew not that I watched her face — 

Her spirit through her eyes was gone 
To some far-off and Sabbath place, 

And left me gazing there alone. 
Could she have known, that quiet hour, 

What ghosts her presence raised in me, 
What graves were opened by the power 

Of that unconscious witchery, 



A MEMORY. 71 

She would not thus have sat and seen 

The bird that balanced far below 
On the blue air, and watched the sheen 

Along his broad wings come and go. 
For was she not another's bride ? 

And I — what right had I to feast 
Upon those eyes in revery wide, 

With hungering gaze like famished beast ? 
Was it before my fate I knelt — 

The human fate, the mighty law — 
To hunger for the heart I felt, 

And love the lovely face I saw ? 
Or was it only that the brow, 

Or some sweet trick of hand or tone, 
Brought from the Past to haunt me now 

Her ghost whose love was mine alone ? 
I know not ; but we went to rest 

That eve, from songs that haunt me still, 
And all night long, in visions blest, 

I walked with angels on the hill. 



XIII 
LOST LOVE. 

BURY it, v and sift 
Dust upon its light, — 
Death must not be left 
To offend the sight. 

Cover the old love — 

Weep not on the mound — 
Grass shall grow above, 

Lilies spring around. 

Can we fight the law, 

Can our natures change — 

Half-way through withdraw- 
Other lives exchange ? 



LOST LOVE. 73 

You and I must do 

As the world has done, 
There is nothing new 

Underneath the sun. 



Fill the grave up full — 
Put the dead love by — 

Not that men are dull, 
Not that women lie, — 



But 'tis well and right — - 
Safest, you will find — 

That the Out of Sight 
Should be Out of Mind. 



XIV 
INFLUENCES. 

FROM the scarlet sea of sunset, 
Tossing up its waves of fire 
To a floating spray of splendor, 
Kindles through me mad desire 

Now — now — now to call her mine ! 

From the ashen gray of twilight 
Musings dark as shadows linger — 

Slowly creeping, leave me weeping — 
While in silence round my finger 
That long glossy lock I twine. 

From the holy hush of starlight 
Sinks a peace upon my spirit, 

And a voice of hope and patience — 
All the quiet night I hear it — 

Whispers, " Wait, for she is thine !" 



?*;/ 



XV 
A DAILY MIRACLE. 

JUNE'S sunshine on the broad porch shines 
Through tangled curtains of crossing vines ; 
The restless dancing of the leaves 
Dusky webs of shadow weaves, 
That wander on the oaken floor, 
Or cross the threshold of the door. 
Scattered where'er their mazes run 
Lie little phantoms of the sun : 
Whatever chink the sunbeam found, 
Crooked or narrow, on the ground 
The shadowy image still is round. 



76 A DAILY MIRACLE. 

So the image of God in the heart of a man, 
Which truth makes, rifting as it can 
Through the narrow crooked ways 
Of our restless deeds and days, 
Stiil is His image — bright or dim — 
And scorning it, is scorning Him. 



XVI 
LIFE. 

FORENOON, and afternoon, and night, — Fore- 
noon, 
And afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, and — what ! 
The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 
Yea, that is Life : make this forenoon sublime, 
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 

And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 
7* 



XVII 
THE CHOICE. 

ONLY so much of power each day — 
So much nerve-force brought in play 
If it goes for politics or trade, 
Ends gained or money made, 
You have it not for the soul and God — 
The. choice is yours, to soar or plod. 
So much water in the rill : 
It may go to turn the miller's wheel, 

Or sink in the desert, or flow on free 
To brighten its banks in meadows green, 
Till broadening out, fair fields between, 

It streams to the moon-enchanted sea. 
Only so little power each day : 
Week by week days slide away ; 

Ere the life goes, what shall it be — 
A trade — a game — a mockery, 
Or the gate of a rich Eternity ? 



XVIII 
MORNING. 

I ENTERED once, at break of day, 
A chapel, lichen-stained and gray, 
Where a congregation dozed and heard 
An old monk read from a written Word. 
No light through the window-panes could pass, 
For shutters were closed on the rich-stained glass ; 
And in a gloom like the nether night 
The monk read on by a taper's light. 
Ghostly with shadows, that shrank and grew 
As the dim light flared, were aisle and pew ; 
And the congregation that dozed around, 
Listened without a stir or sound — 
Save one, who rose with wistful face, 
And shifted a shutter from its place. 



80 MORNING. 

Then light flashed in like a flashing gem — 
For dawn had come unknown to them — 
And a slender beam, like a lance of gold, 
Shot to a crimson curtain-fold, 
Over the bended head of him 
Who pored and pored by the taper dim ; 
And it kindled over his wrinkled brow 
Such words — " The law which was till now ;" 
And I wondered that, under that morning ray, 
When night and shadow were scattered away, 
The monk should bow his locks of white 
By a taper's feebly flickering light — 
Should pore, and pore, and never seem 
To notice the golden morning-beam. 



XIX 

A PRAYER. 

OGOD, our Father, if we had but truth ! 
Lost truth — which thou perchance 
Didst let man lose, lest all his wayward youth 

He waste in song and dance ; 
That he might gain, in searching, mightier powers 
For manlier use in those foreshadowed hours. 



If, blindly groping, he shall oft mistake, 

And follow twinkling motes 
Thinking them stars, and the one voice forsake 

Of Wisdom for the notes 
Which mocking Beauty utters here and there, 
Thou surely wilt forgive him, and forbear ! 



82 A PRAYER. 

Oh love us, for we love thee, Maker — God ! 

And would creep near thy hand, 
And call thee " Father, Father," from the sod 

Where by our graves we stand, 
And pray to touch, fearless of scorn or blame, 
Thy garment's hem, which Truth and Good we name. 



XX 

THE POLAR SEA. 

AT the North, far away, 
Rolls a great sea for aye, 
Silently, awfully. 
Round it on every hand 
Ice-towers majestic stand, 
Guarding this silent sea 
Grimly, invincibly. 
Never there man hath been, 
Who hath come back again, 
Telling to ears of men 
What is this sea within. 
Under the starlight, 
Rippling the moonlight, 
Drinking the sunlight, 



84 THE POLAR SEA. 

Desolate, never heard nor seen, 
Beating forever it hath been. 



From our life far away 
Roll the dark waves, for aye, 
Of an Eternity, 
Silently, awfully. 
Round it on every hand 
Death's icy barriers stand, 
Guarding this silent sea 
Grimly, invincibly. 
Never there man hath been 
Who could return again, 
Telling to mortal ken 
What is within the sea 
Of that Eternity. 



Terrible is our life — 

In its whole blood-written history 

Only a feverish strife ; 

In its beginning, a mystery — 

In its wild ending, an agony. 

Terrible is our death — 



THE POLAR SEA. 85 

Black-hanging cloud over Life's setting sun, 

Darkness of night when the daylight is done. 

In the shadow of that cloud, 

Deep within that darkness' shroud, 

Rolls the ever-throbbing sea ; 

And we — all we — 

Are drifting rapidly 

And floating silently 

Into that unknown sea— 

Into Eternity. 

8 



XXI 

FAITH. 

• 

THE tree-top, high above the barren field, 
Rising beyond the night's gray folds of mist, 
Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed 

To perfect silence, by the faint moon kiss'd. 
But the low branches, drooping to the ground, 

Sway to and fro, as sways funereal plume, 
While from their restless depths low whispers 
sound — 
* * We fear, we fear the darkness and the gloom ; 
Dim forms beneath us pass and reappear, 
And mournful tongues are menacing us here." 



FAITH. 8 J 

Then from the topmost bough falls calm reply — 
" Hush, hush ! I see the coming of the morn ; 
Swiftly the silent Night is passing by, 
And in her bosom rosy Dawn is borne. 
'Tis but your own dim shadows that ye see, 
Tis but your own low moans that trouble ye." 



So Life stands, with a twilight world around ; 

Faith turned serenely to the steadfast sky, 
Still answering the heart that sweeps the ground, 
Sobbing in fear, and tossing restlessly — 

"Hush, hush! The Dawn breaks o'er the 

Eastern sea, 
'Tis but thine own dim shadow troubling thee. " 



XXII 

FERTILITY. 

CLEAR water on smooth rock 
Could give no foothold for a single flower, 
Or slenderest shaft of grain : 
The stone must crumble under storm and rain — 
The forests crash beneath the whirlwind's power- — 
And broken boughs from many a tempest-shock, 
And fallen leaves of many a wintry hour, 
Must mingle in the mould, 
Before the harvest whitens on the plain, 
Bearing an hundred-fold. 
Patience, O weary heart ! 
Let all thy sparkling hours depart, 



FERTILITY. 89 

And all thy hopes be withered with the frost, 
And every effort tempest-tost — 
So, when all life's green leaves 
Are fallen, and mouldered underneath the sod, 
Thou shalt go not too lightly to thy God, 
But heavy with full sheaves. 
8* 



XXIII 
MUSIC. 

THE little rim of moon hangs low — the room 
Is saintly with the presence of the Night, 
And Silence broods with knitted brows around. 
The woven lilies of the velvet floor 
Blend with the roses in the dusky light, 
Which shows twin pictures glimmering from the 

walls : 
Here, a mailed group kneels by the rocky sea — 
There, a gray desert, and a well, and palms ; 
While the faint perfume of a violet, 
Vague as a dream of Spring, pervades the air. 
Where the moon gleams along the organ-front, 
The crooked shadow of a dead branch stirs 
Like ghostly fingers gliding through a tune. 



MUSIC. 91 

Now rises one with faintly rustling robes, 
And white hands search among the glistening keys. 
Out of the silence sounds are forming — tones 
That seem to come from infinite distances, — 
Soft trebles fluttering down like snowy doves 
Just dipping their swift wings in the deep base 
That crumbles downward like a crumbling wave ; 
And out of those low-gathering harmonies 
A voice arises, tangled in their maze, 
Then soaring up exultantly alone, 
While the accompaniment wails and complains. 
— I am upon the sea-shore. 'Tis the sound 
Of ocean, surging on against the land. 
That throbbing thunder is the roar of surf 
Beaten and broken on the frothy rocks. 
Those whispering trebles are the plashing waves 
That ripple up the smooth sand's slope, and kiss 
The tinkling shells with coy lips, quick withdrawn ; 
And over all, the solitary voice 
Is the wind wandering on its endless quest. 
— A change comes, in a crash of minor chords. 
I am a dreamer, waking from his dream 
Into the life to which our life is sleep. 
My soul is floating — floating, till afar 
The round Earth rolls, with fleece of moonlit cloud, 



92 MUSIC. 

A globe of amber, gleaming as it goes. 

Deep in some hollow cavern of the sky 

All human life is pleading to its God. 

Still the accompaniment wails and complains ; — 

A wild confusion of entangled chords, 

Revenge, and fear, and strong men's agony, 

The shrill cry of despair, the slow, deep swell 

Of Time's long effort, sinking but to swell, 

While woman's lonely love, and childhood's faith 

Go wandering with soft whispers hand in hand. 

Suddenly from the ages one pure soul 

Is singled out to plead before the Throne ; 

And then again the solitary voice 

Peals up among the stars from the great throng, 

Catching from out the storm all love, all hope, 

All loveliness of life, and utters it. 

Then the hushed music sobs itself to sleep, 
And all is still,-— save the reluctant sigh 
That tells the wakening from immortal dreams. 



XXIV. 
THREE SONGS. 

SING me, thou Singer, a song of gold ! 
Said a careworn man to me : 
So I sang of the golden summer days, 
And the sad, sweet autumn's yellow haze, 
Till his heart grew soft, and his mellowed gaze 
Was a kindly sight to see. 

Sing me, dear Singer, a song of love ! 

A fair girl asked of me : 
Then I sang of a love that clasps the Race, 
Gives all, asks naught — till her kindled face 
Was radiant with the starry grace 

Of blessed Charity. 



94 THREE SONGS. 

Sing me, O Singer, a song of life ! 

Cried an eager youth to me : 
And I sang of the life without alloy, 
Beyond our years, till the heart of the boy 
Caught the golden beauty, and love, and joy 

Of the great Eternity. 



XXV 
DESPAIR AND HOPE. 

WE sailed a cruise on a summer sea- 
I, and a skull for company : 
I in the stern our course to turn, 
And it on the prow to grin at me. 
Over the deep heaven, hung below, 
Whose imaged clouds lay white like snow, 
Glided we, as the tide might be, 
Slipping swiftly, floating slow. 

Past the woods all living green — 
Save by the marge some fading tree, 

Whose leaf, so early autumn-touched, 
Would make the skull to grin at me. 



96 DESPAIR AND HOPE. 

Past a grove of fragrant pine, 
From whose dusky depths of shade 
Snowy shaft and colonnade 

Marked a ruined altar-shrine ;— 

And the skull's grim face grinned into mine. 



Under the arch of a vine-clasped elm 

Leaning off from the mossy land, 
Across the shallow the idle helm 

Lightly furrowed the silver sand : 
Down the slope all clover-sweet 

Danced a group in childish glee — 
Hissed a swift snake at their feet ; — 

Then the skull grinned unto me. 



Into a cavern dim and dank 

Crept we on the creeping tide ; 
Shapeless creatures rose and sank, 

Dripped with damp the ceiling wide. 
Darker, chiller hung the air ; 

Scarcely I the prow could see ; 
But I, through the shadow there, 

Felt the skull still grin at me. 



DESPAIR AND HOPE. 97 

Out of the cavern's thither side, 

Into a mellow, morn-like glow, 
Streams the ripple-curving tide ; 

Sounds of music sweeter grow ; 
Odorous incense, softened air, 
Melodies so faint and fair, 

Thrill me through with life and love : 
And all suddenly from the prow, 
Where had seemed the skull just now, 

Flutters to my breast a dove. 

9 



XXVI 
WISDOM AND FAME. 

A WILDERNESS, made awful with the night- 
Great glimmering trunks whose tops were 
hid in gloom, 
Vast columns in the blackness broken off, 
Between whose ghostly forms, slow-wandering, 
A company of lost men sought a path. 

Some groped among the dead leaves and fallen 
boughs 
For footprints ; but the rattle of the leaves 
And crook of stems seemed serpents coiled to strike. 

Some took the momentary sparks that rode 
Upon their straining eyeballs, for far lights, 
And followed them. 

Some stood apart, in vain 
Searching, with horror-widened eyes, for stars. 



WISDOM AND FAME. 99 

So stumbling on, they circled round and round 
Through the same mazes. 

Then they singled one 
To climb a pinnacled height, and see from thence 
The landmarks, and to shout from thence their 

course. 
With aching sinews, bleeding feet, bruised hands, 
He gained the height ; but when they cried to him 
They got but maudlin answers, — he had found, 
Slaking hot thirst, a fruit that maddened him. 

Another, and another still they sent ; 
But every one that climbed found the ill fruit 
And maddened, and gave back but wild replies : 
And still in darkness they go wandering, lost. 



XXVII 
SERENITY. 

BROOK, 
Be still,— be still ! 
Midnight's arch is broken 
In thy ceaseless ripples. 
Dark and cold below them 
Runs the troubled water, — 
Only on its bosom, 
Shimmering and trembling, 
Doth the glinted star-shine 

Sparkle and cease. 



8ERENITY. IOI 



Life, 
Be still,— be still ! 
Boundless truth is shattered 
On thy hurrying current. 
Rest, with face uplifted, 
Calm, serenely quiet ; 
Drink the deathless beauty — 
Thrills of love and wonder 
Sinking, shining, star-like ; 
Till the mirrored heaven 
Hollow down within thee 
Holy deeps unfathomed, 
Where far thoughts go floating, 
And low voices wander 

Whispering peace. 

9* 



XXVIII 

THE RUBY HEART: 
a child's story. 

UNDER a fragrant blossom-bell 
A tiny Fairy once did dwell. 
The moss was bright about her feet, 
Her little face was fair and sweet, 
Her form in rainbow hues was clad, 
And yet the Fairy's soul was sad ; 
For, of the Elves that round her moved, 
And in the yellow moonlight roved, 
There was no Spirit that she loved. 

Many a one there was, I ween, 
Among the sprites that danced the green, 



THE RUBY HEART. 103 

Whose hands were warm to clasp her own, 
And voices kindly in their tone ; 
But love the fondest and the best 
Awaked no answer in her breast : 
Her heart unmoved within her slept — 
And, "I can never love !" she wept. 



She taught herself a quaint old song 
And crooned it over all day long : 

1 1 He prayeih best who loveth best 

All things, both great and small ; 
For the dear God thai loveth us, 
He made and loveth all, " 

"But I," she said, "can never pray, 

Nor to His mansions find the way, 

For He will suffer not, I know, 

A creature unto Him to go 

Who has not loved His world below." 



Slow-wandering by the brook alone, 
She chose a pure white pebble-stone, 



104 THE RUBY HEART. 

And carved it, sitting there apart, 

Into a little marble heart ; 

She hung it by her mossy bed — 

11 My heart will never love," she said, 

"Till this white stone turn ruby-red." 

One night a moonbeam smote her face 
And wakened her, and in its place 
There stood an angel, full of grace. 
"Dear child," he said, "from far above 
I come to teach thee how to love. 
Do every day some little deed 
Of kindness, some faint creature feed, 
Make some hurt spirit cease to bleed, 
Then carve the record fair, at night, 
Upon thy heart of marble white. 
Each word shall turn to ruby-red, 
And so much of thy task be sped ; — 
For when the whole is ruddied o'er, 
Thy bosom shall be cold no more ; 
The souls thy careless thoughts contemn 
Shall win thee by thy deeds to them. " 

Upon the sorrowful Fairy broke 
Like sudden sunshine this new hope. 



THE RUBY HEART. 105 

Each day to some one's door she took 
A kindly act, or word, or look, 
Whose record, fairly carved at night, 
Blushed out upon the stony white ; 
Till, somehow, wondrously there grew 
More grace in every one she knew — 
Each little ugliness concealed, 
Each goodness more and more revealed, — 
As, when you watch the twilight through, 
The sky seems one pure empty blue, 
Till, o'er the paling sunset-bars, 
Suddenly 'tis one sweep of stars ! 



So day by day she found herself 
Grow kindlier to each little elf; 
Yea, even to the birds and bees, 
And slender flowerets round her knees : 
The very moss-buds at her feet 
She came with warmer smile to greet, 
Till now, at last, her marble heart 
Was ruddy, save one little part 
That gleamed all snowy as of old 
In the still moonbeams, white and cold. 



106 THE EUBY HEART. 

Her task was almost done — she knelt 
And hid her glad wet eyes, and felt 
Her soul's first prayer steal up to God, 
Like Spring's first violet from the sod. 
Through all her being softly stole 
Such joy of gratitude, her soul 
Brimmed over like a brimming cup — 
And then a voice said, " Child, look up !" 
And lo ! the stone above her head 
Was a pure ruby, starry-red ; 
And down among the flowers there flew 
Brushing aside the moonlit dew, 
A little snowy elfin dove, 
And nestled on her breast, to prove 
Sweet trust in one whose heart was Love. 



XXIX 
TO CHILD ANNA. 



AS in the Spring, ere any flowers have come, 
A vague and blossomy smell 
Pervades the woods, all odors mixed in one, 
As if to tell 
That they are mustering in each sunny dell, 



So round your childish form there seems to cling 

A sense of nameless grace, 
A sweet confusion — budding hints of Spring 

Just giving place 

To graver woman-shadows in your face. 



108 TO CHILD ANNA. 

I see no longer the mere child you are — 

The woman you might be 
Stands in your place, with eyes that gaze afar : 

Her face I see, 

And it is very beautiful to me. 



The little soft white hands you lay in mine 

I touch with reverent care ; 
I see them wrinkled into many a line, 

But fair — more fair 

For every weary deed they do and bear. 

The fresh young mouth, all careless purity, 

Has faded from my gaze, 
And all the tender looks, which charity 

And many patient days 

Leave round the lips, seem now to take its place. 

Therefore I stroke so tenderly your head, 

Or watch your steps afar, 
Praying that God His love on you will shed — 

More faithful far 

Than our blind human love and watching are. 



XXX 
THE WORLD'S SECRET. 

I KNOW the splendor of the Sun, 
And beauty in the leaves, and moss, and grass ; 
I love the birds' small voices every one, 

And all the hours have kindness as they pass ; 



But still the heart can apprehend 

A deeper purport than the brain may know : 
I see it at the dying daylight's end, 

And hear it when the winds begin to blow. 



It strives to speak from all the world, 

Out of dumb earth, and moaning ocean-tides ; 
And brooding Night, beneath her pinions furled, 

Some message writ in starry cipher hides. 

10 



IIO THE WORLD'S SECRET. 

Must I go seeking everywhere 

The meanings that behind our objects be — 
A depth serener in the azure air, 

A something more than peace upon the sea? 



Not one least deed one soul to bless ? 

Unto the stern-eyed Future shall I bear 
Only the sense of pain without redress, 

Self-sickness, and a dull and stale despair ? 



Nay, let me shape, in patience slow, 

My years, like the holy child his bird of clay, 
Till suddenly the clod its Master know, 

And thrill with life, and soar with songs away. 



XXXI 
THE FOUNTAIN. 

WERE it not horrible- 
After all the dreams we dream, 
Our yearnings and our prayers, 
If this "I" were but a stream 
Of thoughts, sensations, joys, and pains, 
Which being clogged, no soul remains ? 
Even as the fountain seems to be 
A shape of one identity, 
But only is a stream of drops, 
And when the swift succession stops, 
The fountain melts and disappears, 
Leaving no trace but scattered tears. 
Yet even here, O foolish heart, 
Thou wert not cheated of thy part ; 



112 THE FOUNTAIN. 

Were it not better, even here, 

To keep thy current pure and clear, 

With pearly drops of dew to wet 

The amaranth and violet, 

And round thy crystal feet to shower 

Blessings and beauty ever hour — 

Better than in a sullen flow 

To creep around the ground, and go 

Wasting and sinking through the sand, 

Because not always thus to stand ? 



) 



XXXII. 
DISCONTENT. 

OH THAT one could arise and flee 
Unto blue-eyed Italy, 
Far from mechanical clank and hu m ! 
There to sit by the sighing sea, 
And to dream of the days that shall be — shall be- 
And the glory of years to come : \ 
Or on some far ocean-isle, 
Under the palm and the cocoa-tree, 
To build of the coral boughs a home : \ 
Or floating and falling adown the Nile, 
To drown one's cares in the deeps of Tinie 
And the desert's brooding mystery. 



/ 

/ 
/ 

114 DISCONTENT. 

Yet howsoever we plot or plar^ 

In every age — through every clime — 

Still the littleness of man / 

Would follow us, fast as wfj might flee ; 

And the wrangling world break in on whatever is 

tender and sweet, , 
As on a beautiful tune the rattling and noise of the 

street. ' 



XXXIII 
SOLITUDE. 

ALL alone — alone, 
Calm, as on a kingly throne, 
Take thy place in the crowded land, 
Self-centred in free self-command. 
Let thy manhood leave behind 
The narrow ways of the lesser mind : 
What to thee are its little cares, 
The feeble love or the spite it bears ? 
Let the noisy crowd go by : 
In thy lonely watch on high, 
Far from the chattering tongues of men, 
Sitting above their call or ken, 
Free from links of manner and form 
Thou shalt learn of the winged storm — 
God shall speak to thee out of the sky. 



XXXIV 
A PARADOX. 

HASTE, haste, O laggard ! — leave thy drowsy 
dreams ; 
Cram all thy brain with knowledge — clutch and cram ! 
The earth is wide, the universe is vast : 
Thou hast infinity to learn. Oh haste ! 

Haste not, haste not, my soul ! " Infinity ?" 
Thou hast eternity to learn it in. 
Thy boundless lesson through the endless years 
Hath boundless leisure. Run not like a slave — 
Sit like a king, and see the ranks of worlds 
Wheel in their cycles onward to thy feet. 



XXXV 
THE FUTURE. 

WHAT may we take into the vast Forever ? 
That marble door 
Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, 
No fame-wreathed crown we wore, 
No garnered lore. 

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal ? 

No gold, no gains 
Of all our toiling : in the life immortal 

No hoarded wealth remains, 

Nor gilds, nor stains. 



Il8 THE FUTURE. 

Naked from out that far abyss behind us 

We entered here : 
No word came with our coming, to remind us 

What wondrous world was near, 

No hope, no fear. 



Into the silent, starless Night before us, 

Naked we glide : 
No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us, 

No comrade at our side, 

No chart, no guide. 



Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow, 

Our footsteps fare : 
The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow— 

His love alone is there, 

No curse, no care. 



XXXVI 

RETROSPECT. 

NOT all which we have been 
Do we remain, 
Nor on the dial-hearts of men 

Do the years mark themselves in vain ; 
But every cloud that in our sky hath passed, 
Some gloom or glory hath upon us cast ; 
And there have fallen from us, as we travelled, 

Many a burden of an ancient pain — 
Many a tangled chord hath been unravelled, 

Never to bind our foolish heart again. 
Old loves have left us, lingeringly and slow, 
As melts away the distant strain of low 
Sweet music — waking us from troubled dreams, 
Lulling to holier ones — that dies afar 
On the deep night, as if by silver beams 
Claspt to the trembling breast of some charmed star. 



1 2 O BETE OSPECT. 

And we have stood and watched, all wistfully, 

While fluttering hopes have died out of our lives, 

As one who follows with a straining eye 

A bird that far, far-off fades in the sky, 

A little rocking speck — now lost ; and still he strives 

A moment to recover it — in vain ; 

Then slowly turns back to his work again. 

But loves and hopes have left us in their place, 

Thank God ! a gentle grace, 

A patience, a belief in His good time, 

Worth more than all earth's joys to which we climb. 



XXXVII 
HOME. 

I KNOW a spot beneath three ancient trees, 
A solitude of green and grassy shade, 
Where the tall roses, naked to the knees, 

In that deep shadow wade, 
Whose rippled coolness dri; s from bough to bough, 
And bathes the world's vexat on from my brow. 



The gnarled limbs spring upward airy-free, 
And never from their perfect arch they swerve, 

Like spouted fountains from a dark, green sea, 
So beautiful they curve, — 

Motionless fountains, slumbering in mid-air, 

With spray of shadows falling everywhere. 



122 HOME. 

Here the Sun comes not like the king of day, 
To rule his own, but hesitant ; afraid, 

Forbears his sceptre's golden length to lay 
Across the inviolate shade, 

And wraps the broad space like a darkened tent, 

With many a quivering shaft of splendor rent. 



Seclusion, as an island still and lone, 

Round which the Ocean-world may ebb and flow 
Unheeded, following fruitlessly the moon ; 

And where the soul may go 
Naked of all its vanities and cares, 
To meet the bounteous grace that Nature bares. 



Here stretched at morn I watch the sunrise ray 
That sweeps across the earth like minstrel's hand, 

Waking from all the birds a song of day, 
Caught up from land to land ; 

And earth is beautiful and hearts are brave, 

Ere busy Life has waked to claim her slave. 



HOME. 123 

Each day — a pure and velvet-petall'd flower — 
Blooms fresh at dawn, with trembling light bedewn, 

But dull and tarnished at the mid-day hour — 
The noisy, trampling noon — 

Its beauty soiled with handling. Ever choose 

The virgin morning for the soul to use. 



The wind comes hushing, hushing through the trees, 
Like surf that breaks on an invisible beach 

And sends a spray of whispers down the breeze, 
Whispers that seem to reach 

From some far inner land where spirits dwell, 

And hint the secret which they may not tell. 



No garrulous company is here, but books — 

Earth's best men taken at their best — books used, 

With dark-edged paths and pencilled margin-strokes, 
Where friends have paused and mused ; 

And here and there, beneath the noticed lines, 

Faint zigzag marks like little trailing vines. 



124 HOME. 

Here, what to me are all the childish cares 
That make a Bedlam of the busy world ? 

Each hour that flies some quiet message bears 
Beneath its moments furled, 

Like a white dove, that, under her soft wings, 

Kind thoughts from far-off home and kindred 
brings. 



XXXVIII 
THE DEAD PRESIDENT. 

WERE there no crowns on earth, 
No evergreen to weave a hero's wreath, 
That he must pass beyond the gates of death, 
Our hero, our slain hero, to be crowned ? 
Could there on our unworthy earth be found 
Naught to befit his worth ? 



The noblest soul of all ! 
When was there ever, since our Washington, 
A man so pure, so wise, so patient — one 
Who walked with this high goal alone in sight, 
To speak, to do, to sanction only Right, 

Though very heaven should fall ! 
ii* 



126 THE DEAD PBESIDENT, 

Ah, not for him we weep ; 
What honor more could be in store for him ? 
Who would have had him linger in our dim 
And troublesome world, when his great work was 

done — 
Who would not leave that worn and weary one 

Gladly to go to sleep ? 



For us the stroke was just ; 
We were not worthy of that patient heart ; 
We might have helped him more, not stood apart, 
And coldly criticised his works and ways : 
Too late now, all too late — our little praise 

Sounds hollow o'er his dust. 



Be merciful, O God ! 
Forgive the meanness of our human hearts, 
That never, till a noble soul departs, 
See half the worth, or hear the angel's wings 
Till they go rustling heavenward as he springs 

Up from the mounded sod. 



THE DEAD PRESIDENT. 1 27 

Yet, what a deathless crown 
Of Northern pine and Southern orange-flower, 
For victory, and the land's new bridal-hour, 
Would we have wreathed for that beloved brow ! 
Sadly upon his sleeping forehead now 

We lay our Cypress down. 



O martyred one, farewell ! 
Thou hast not left thy people quite alone : 
Out of thy beautiful life there comes a tone 
Of power, of love, of trust — a prophecy, 
Whose fair fulfilment all the earth shall be, 

And all the Future tell. 



XXXIX 
SEEMING AND BEING. 

THE brave old motto, ' ' Seem not — only be, "- 
Would it were set ablaze against the sky 
In golden letters, where the world must read ! 
What is there done for the honest doing's sake, 
In these poor times gone mad with self-parade ? 
There's not a picture of the Cross but bears 
The painter's name as prominent as the Christ's : 
There's not a scene, of such peculiar grace 
That one would fain forget men's meanness there, 
But from the rocks some rascal clothier's name 
Stares in great capitals, till one could wish 
The knave hung from his signboard, for a sign : 
There's not a graveyard in the land, but lo ! 
On the white tablets of the dead, full cut 
Below their sacred names, his shameless name 
Who carved the marble ! 



SEEMING AND BEING. 1 29 

Is it not pitiful ? 
We are all actors, and all audience. 
Yea, such a dreary farce we make our lives, 
That something is expected of a man 
Upon his deathbed : 1 ' Hark ye now, good friends, 
These fine last words, this notable bravery,— see I" 
So even the grim cross-bones of awful Death 
Must take an attitude, and the skull smirk 
For a last picture. 



Here is a nation, too, 
(God help it !) that dare scarcely act its mind, 
But walks the world's stage, quaking with the thought, 
"What will great England think of me for this?" 



The poet scoffs at fame, then sets himself, 
Full-titled, with a portrait at the front ; 
Each beautiful, impatient soul, who left 
The world he scorned, still lingered near enough 
To listen, not displeased, and hear the world 
Admiringly relate how he had scorned it ; 
Even our great doubting Thomas, in young days 
When he praised silence, did it with loud speech, 



130 SEEMING AND BEING. 

That ever too distinctly told, " Tis I, 
Thomas, so noisily abuse your noise !" 



Is it not enough for the trumpet that the god 
Has chosen it to sound his message through — 
Must the brass blare in its own petty praise ? 
And can we never do the right, and do it 
As though we were alone upon the earth, 
And the gods blind ? 



XL 
SUMMER AFTERNOON. 

FAR in hollow mountain canons 
Brood, with purple-folded pinions, 
Flocks of drowsy distance-colors on their nests ; 
And the bare round slopes for forests 
Have cloud-shadows, floating forests, 
On their breasts. 



Winds are wakening and dying, 
Questions low with low replying, 
Through the oak a hushed and trembling whisper 
goes : 
Faint and rich the air with odors, 
Hyacinth and spicy odors 

Of the rose. 



I32 SUMMER AFTERNOON. 

Even the flowerless acacia 
Is one flower — such slender stature, 
With its latticed leaves a-tremble in the sun 
They have shower-drops for blossoms, 
Quivering globes of diamond-blossoms, 
Every one. 



In the blue of heaven holy 
Clouds go floating, floating slowly, 
Pure in snowy robe and sunny silver crown ; 
And they seem like gentle angels — 
Leisure-full and loitering angels, 

Looking down. 



Half the birds are wild with singing, 
And the rest with rhythmic winging 
Sing in melody of motion to the sight ; 
Every little sparrow twitters, 
Cheerily chirps, and cheeps, and twitters 
His delight. 



SUMMER AFTERNOON. 1 33 

Sad at heart amid the splendor, 
Dull to all the radiance tender, 
What can I for such a world give back again ? 
Could I only hint the beauty — 
Some least shadow of the beauty, 
Unto men ! 
12 



XLI 

WEATHER-BOUND. 

THOU pitiless, false sea ! 
How, like a woman, thou wilt softly sigh 
With heaving breast where bubble-jewels shine, 
Or, beckoning, toss thy foam-white arms on high, 
And laugh with those blue sunny eyes of thine ! 

Ah, crouching, creeping sea ! 
Thou tiger-cat ! how, while the winds make pause 

To stroke thy long smooth back in quiet play, 
Thou canst unsheathe thy velvet-hidden claws 

And spring all unawares upon thy prey ! 



WE A THER-B O UND. 1 3 5 

Thou treacherous, cruel sea ! 
How thou wilt show thy glittering smile at night, 

Hiding thy fangs, hushing thy fiendish cry, 
And rise all gentle sport from licking white 

The bones of men that underneath thee lie ! 

O bitter, bitter sea ! 
Didst thou not fawn about my naked feet, 

When I stood with thee on the beach, and say 
That thou wouldst bear me swiftly home to meet 

My darling, waiting there in vain to-day ? 

Yea, thou most mighty sea ! 
Keep then that promise murmured on the shore ; 

Put thy great shoulders to our loitering keel, 
Not as in rage and wrath thou hast before — 

Let the good ship thy help gigantic feel. 

Thou answerest me, O sea ! 
Lifting in silence, o'er the waters stilled, 

The shattered fragment of a rainbow fair, 
A mocking promise, ne'er to be fulfilled, 

Based on the waves and broken in mid-air. 



XLII 
TO CHILD SARA. 

I LOOKED in a dew-drop's heart to-day 
As it clung on a leaf of clover, 
Holding a sparkle of starry light, 
Like a liquid drop of opal bright 
With diamond dusted over. 



In that least globe of quivering dew, 

The sunny scene around, 
Diminished to a grass-blade's width — 
Scarcely a fairy's finger-breadth — 

All imaged there I found : 



TO CHILD SARA. 1 37 

The spreading oak, the fir's soft fringe, 
The grain-field's brightening green, 

The linnet that flew fluttering by, 

And, over all, the dear blue sky, 
The bending boughs between : 



And all the night, as from its nest 

It gazes up afar, 
Its bosom holds the heavens deep, 
Whose constellations o'er it sweep, 

And mirrors every star. 

Child, is that drop of dew — your soul- 

With mirrored heaven as bright ? 
(Forgive me that I ask of you, 
Whose heart I know is pure and true 
And stainless as the light : ) 



The sunshine, and the starlight too,- 

Fair hope, and faith as fair, 
Courage, and patience, silent power, 
And wisdom for each troubled hour,- 
Tell me, are they all there ? 
12* 



138 TO CHILD SABA. 

Your quiet grace, and kindly words 
Have influence sweet and strong ; 
Your hand and voice can calm the brain, 
And cheer the heavy hearts of men 
With music and with song : 



Let the soul answer — can it give 
That music clear and calm — 
The rhythmic years, the holier aim, 
The scorn of pleasure, fortune, fame- 
To make our life a psalm ? 



All round the house, your birthday morn 

The budded orchards stand ; 
And we can watch from every room 
The trees all blushing into bloom — 
Blossoms on every hand : 



So may your Life be, many a year, 

A fair and goodly tree ; 
Not blossoming only, but sublime 
With fruit, so hastening the time 

When Earth shall Eden be. 



XLIII 
A FABLE. 

TO CHILD ANNA. 

ONE morning, in a Prince's park, 
Before the rising of the lark 
Or the first glimmering twilight beam, 
A Lily blossomed by a stream ; 
Just at the chillest, darkest hour, 
When frowning clouds in heaven lower, 
When shadows crouch all gaunt and grim, 
And every little star is dim. 
" O dreary world !" the Lily sighed : 
Only the dreary wind replied. 

Soon, in the East uprising slow, 
A cold gray dawn began to grow. 
The Lily watched where all around 
The mist came creeping o'er the ground, 



140 A FABLE. 

And listened, while with sadder tone 
The morning-wind began to moan : 
But all the more the light drew on, 
Her tear-dewed cheek was deathlier wan,- 
Each streak of daylight, as it grew, 
Revealed a world so strange and new. 
Slowly the dawn crept up the sky 
Like a cold, cruel, watching eye. 
Once from some little wakened bird 
A twittering note of joy she heard : 
The chill dew fell upon her head — 
She almost wished that she were dead ; 
" There comes no joy for me," she said. 
A gnarled and wisdom-wrinkled Oak 
Which overheard, in answer spoke : 
"O foolish little Lilybell, 
Why do you weep, when all is well ? 
Look up ! Have faith ! For by-and-by 
The sun is coming up the sky ; 
All golden red the heavens will glow, 
All golden green the earth below ; 
The birds their rippling songs will sing, 
And wooing winds their spices bring : 
And then the Prince will hither come 
To wander 'mid his flowers, and some, 



A FABLE HI 

(Ah, favored blossoms !) bending down, 
He plucks and places in his crown. 
Look up, O foolish Lilybell ! 
A little while, and all is well." 

The Lily drooped and trembled still : 
"The dawn," she sobbed, "is dim and chill ; 
And if the Prince should come, alas ! 
He will not stoop among: the grass ; 
I surely cannot please his eyes, 
For I am neither fair nor wise : 
He'll choose some tall and stateiy tree, 
He surely will not care for me I" 

But now the sunrise was at hand, 
Lighting with splendor all the land ; 
As if a seraph stood below 
With lifted pinions all aglow, 
Whose tips of fire still nearer came 
In feathery plumes of floating flame ; 
While from his hidden face the rays 
Shot up and set the heavens ablaze. 
They warmed the old Oak's wrinkled face, 
And touched it with a mellow grace ; 
Then dancing downward to his feet 
They kissed the Lily's face so sweet, 



142 A FABLE. 

And laughed away her foolish fear 
And lit a gem in every tear ; 
Then flew to greet the Master's eye, 
Who even now was drawing nigh. 

He saw the Lily's fragile cup 
With dew and sunlight brimming up, 
And, as he marked each beauty well, 
The petals pure as pearliest shell, 
And on the lowly bending stem 
The tear-drop sparkling like a gem, 
The Prince was glad, and stooping down 
Plucked it, and set it in his crown ; 
And 'mid the jewels glittering there 
None shone so royally and rare, 
For none was half so pure and fair. 

Dear child, 'tis our ingratitude, 
And faithless fear, and sullen mood, 
Darken a world so bright and good ! 
There's nothing beautiful and true — 
There's not a rift of heaven's blue, 
And not a flower, or dancing leaf, 
But shames our selfish-hearted grief. 
His hand that feels the sparrow's fall, 
And builds the bee his castle-wall, 



A FABLE. 143 

And spreads the tiniest insect's sail, 

And tints the violet's purple veil, 

Will never let His children stray 

Or wander from His arms away. 

To-day may seem all cold and dim — 

Trust the To-morrow unto Him. 

'Tis slander that we often hear — 

" Hope whispers falsehoods in our ear," — 

There's no such lying voice as Fear. 

Hope is a prophet sent from Heaven, 

Fear is a false and croaking raven. 

The dawn that buds all gray and cold 

Will blossom to a sky of gold ; 

God's love shall like a sunrise stay 

To lighten all the future way — 

Still brighter to the Perfect Day. 



XLIV 
THE CREATION. 

A FOUNTAIN rusheth upward from God's 
throne : 
Its streaming stem we name Eternal Power : 
Its tossing drops are worlds, that spin and fall, 
While on their spheres our little human lives 
Like gleams and shadows swiftly glance and go. 



XLV 
THE FIRST CAUSE. 

DOUBTLESS the linnet, shut within its cage, 
Thinks the fair child that loves it, brings it seed, 
And hangs it, chirping to it, in the sun, 
Is the preserver of its little world. 

Doubtless the child, within her nursery walls, 
Thinks her kind father is the father of all 
Those happy children, chattering on the lawn — 
Keeps yonder town as well as this bright room, 
And pours the brook that sparkles past the door. 

Doubtless we think the Being who made man, 
The visible world, space powdered thick with stars, 
The golden fruit whose core is curious life, 
Created all things — love, and law, and death ; 
Fate, the crowned forehead ; Will, the sceptred hand. 



I46 THE FIBST CAUSE. 

Perchance — perchance : yet need it be that He 
Who planted us is the Head-gardener ? What 
If beyond Him rose rank on rank, as the bulb 
Is higher than the crystals of its food, 
And he who set it, higher than the flower, 
And he that owns the garden, more than all ? 

The great Cause works through lesser ones ; permits 
The plant to bear dead buds on dying stems ; 
The beaver to weave dams that the stream snaps ; 
The workman to make watches that lose time, 
Or organ-pipes all jarred and out of tune. 
Did not I build a playhouse for my boys, 
And made it ill, and that loose plank fell down 
And hurt the children ? And did not I learn, 
After three trials, how to make it well ? 
Know we the limit of the power He gives 
To lesser Wills to will imperfectly? 
Is earth that limit ? Is the last link man, 
Between the finite and the infinite ? 
When that new star flared out in heaven, and died, 
Who knows what Spirit, failing in his plan, 
Dashed out his work in wrath, to try anew ? 

O mother world ! we stammer at thy knee 
Vainly our childish questions. 'Tis enough 
For such as we to know, that on His throne, 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 147 

Nearer than we can think, and farther off 
Than any mind can fathom, sits the One, 
And sees to it — though pain and evil come, 
And all may not be good — that all is well. 



XLVI 
SEMELE. 

WHAT were the garden-bowers of Thebes to 
me? 
What cared I for their dances and their feasts, 
Whose heart awaited an immortal doom ? 
The Greek youths mocked me, since I shunned in 

scorn 
Them and their praises of my brows and hair. 
The light girls pointed after me, who turned 
Soul-sick from their unending fooleries. 
Apollo's noon-glare wrathfully beat down 
Upon the head that would not bend to him — 
Him in his fuming anger ! — as the highest. 
In every lily's cup a venomous thing 
Crooked up its hairy limbs ; or, if I bent 
To pluck a blue-eyed blossom in the grass, 
Some squatted horror leered with motionless eyes. 



SEMELE. 149 

I think the very earth did hate my feet, 
And put forth thistles to them, since I loathed 
Her bare brown bosom ; and the scowling pines 
Menaced me with dark arms, and hissed their threats 
Behind me, hurrying through their gloom, to watch 
(Blurred in unsteady tears till all their beams 
Dazzled, and shrank, and grew) that oval ring 
Of shining points that rift the Milky-way, 
Revealing, through their gap in the dusted fire, 
The hollow awfulness of night beyond. 



There came a change : a glory fell to me. 
No more 'twas Semele, the lonely girl, 
But Jupiter's Beloved, Semele. 
With human arms the god came clasping me : 
New life streamed from his presence ; and a voice, 
That scarce could curb itself to the smooth Greek, 
Now and anon swept forth in those deep nights, 
Thrilling my flesh with awe ; mysterious words — 
I knew not what ; hints of unearthly things 
That I had felt on solemn summer noons, 
When sleeping earth dreamed music, and the heart 
Went crooning a low song it could not learn, 

13* 



1 50 SEMELE. 

But wandered over it, as one who gropes 
For a forgotten chord upon a lyre. 



Yea, Jupiter ! But why this mortal guise, 
Wooing as if he were a milk-faced boy ? 
Did I lack lovers? Was my beauty dulled, 
The golden hair turned dross, the lithe limbs shrunk, 
The deathless longings tamed, that I should seethe 
My soul in love like any shepherd girl ? 

One night he sware to grant whate'er I asked ; 
And straight I cried — "To know thee as thou art ! 
To hold thee on my heart as Juno does ! 
Come in thy thunder — kill me with one fierce 
Divine embrace ! — Thine oath ! — Now, Earth, at 
last— I" 



The heavens shot one swift sheet of lurid flame : 
The world crashed : from a body scathed and torn 
The soul leapt through, and found his breast, and died. 

"Died?" — So the Theban maidens think, and 
laugh, 
Saying, " She had her wish, that Semele !" 



SEMELE. 1 5 1 

But sitting here upon Olympus' height 

I look down, through that oval ring of stars, 

And see the far-off Earth, a twinkling speck — 

Dust-mote whirled up from the Sun's chariot wheel — 

And pity their small hearts that hold a man 

As if he were a god ; or know the god — 

Or dare to know him — only as a man ! 

— O human love, art thou forever blind ? 



XLVII 
A POETS APOLOGY. 

TRUTH cut on high in tablets of hewn stone, 
Or on great columns gorgeously adorned, 
Perchance were left alone, 
Passed by and scorned ; 
But Truth enchased upon a jewel rare, 
A man would keep, and next his bosom wear. 

So, many an hour, I sit and carve my gems — 
Ten spoiled, for one in purer beauty set : 

Not for kings' diadems — 
Some amulet 

That may be worn o'er hearts that toil and plod, — 

Though but one pearl that bears the name of God. 



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